The salt settled latent
into cracking skin,
everything sticky but not like Summer
heat. Sticky like smoke
in the lungs, where air meets desperation.
The water retreated inside,
back to its undefined border,
the threshold between sinew and sin.
Once inside me it was sweet
but a taste of the salt
climbed up the rungs of my trachea
like a ladder
and kicked my tongue
how anger kicks dogs,
how bottles fall upon walls.
Ezra M. Serra is a Catalonian, queer, and disabled poet who can be found in the woods or the tall grass somewhere. They write about childhood, decomposition, and anything that could be confused with love. His work has been published or is upcoming in Archer Magazine and Mystic Owl Magazine.
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